Siskiyou residents say that the county is such a basket case because the government’s environmental rules have limited opportunities for logging, farming and fishing. The population would be younger if people could get jobs. Siskiyou residents say they aren’t happy that they depend on government.

Reacting to such big-city criticism, the Chico Enterprise-Record, in Butte County, reminded readers that the secession vote is about opposing oppressive regulations, skewed priorities and resource grabs that emanate from “detached” Sacramento: “The folks in Siskiyou County just got tired of outsiders telling them what they could and couldn’t do.” The movement, it argued, is designed to get government officials to “listen up.”

One shouldn’t be optimistic about any new listening skills given that rural residents can’t match the political muscle of the state’s largest special-interest groups. So the Jefferson idea probably won’t go far, but the issues that animate it won’t go away, either.